Re: pronunciation of "Bjarne Stroustrup"

[Alf P. Steinbach]

On 01.03.2016 05:37, Stefan Ram wrote:
> Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,dk.kultur.sprog
>
> (Det er et spørgsmål om fonetisk transskription af det
> danske navn "Bjarne Stroustrup". Jeg beklager, at det er
> skrevet på engelsk. Alligevel, måske nogle danske læsere er
> interesseret i dette spørgsmål.)

I'm Norwegian, and I pronounce it with "U" last. But I'm not sure what
would be correct Danish pronunciation of the first part of the surname.
I pronounce it like midway between "strøstrup" and "strøustrup".

This is why we just call him Bjarne. Or sir Bjarne. In a parallel
universe where he was knighted.

Surnames are so confusing, e.g. my own.


Cheers & hth.,

- Alf

[Haddock]

I'm not Danish, but born in Denmark and I know the pronounciation. The "U" in "strup" is simply pronouced like "U" as in other Scandinvaian languages and as in German, that is "U" is simply "U" and not "YU" as in English.

Then the "ou" in Stroustrup is pronounced as "au" in German. Now you need to know German to understand what I mean. If you don't know German go to leo.org and search for example for German "auto" and click on the audio symbol next to "auto". Then you can hear how "au" is pronounced. The "au" in German is much like the "ou" in "ouch" in English.

-- Haddock

[Poul E. Jørgensen]

Den 01-03-2016 kl. 05:37 skrev Stefan Ram:
> Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,dk.kultur.sprog
>
> (Det er et spørgsmål om fonetisk transskription af det
> danske navn "Bjarne Stroustrup".

Jeg traf engang en dansk-amerikaner med efternavnet Bovbjerg.
Hun var født i USA af danske forældre.
Jeg spurgte selvfølgelig til, hvordan amerikanerne udtalte navnet.
Hun havde vænnet sine bekendte til at sige noget i retning af
Baub-i-ærk, men ellers blev hun vist kaldt båv-bdjørg eller lignende.

PS. I min kollegietid boede der på min gang en fyr der havde et
mærkeligt navn. Når han ringede og bestilte billetter til en
biografforestilling, sagde han: "Mit navn er Hansen." - Det grinede vi
meget af.

--
Fjern Z hvis du svarer pr. e-mail.
Remove the Z if replying by e-mail.

[David Brown]

As a Scot living in Norway, I guess I have been pronouncing it more as
"strustrup" with a Norwegian-style "u". So I suppose I got the second
half reasonably accurate, but not the first half.

> Surnames are so confusing, e.g. my own.

It is not just surnames. I've been here for over half my life, and
still find some forenames difficult.

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Alf P. Steinbach skrev:

> I'm Norwegian, and I pronounce it with "U" last. But I'm not
> sure what would be correct Danish pronunciation of the first
> part of the surname. I pronounce it like midway between
> "strøstrup" and "strøustrup".

"Strou" has the same diphtong as the Danish "hov". I can't find
an English parallel.

Crossposted to: comp.lang.c++, dk.kultur.sprog

--
Bertel - stadig med Linux

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Stefan Ram skrev:

> The wrong pronunciation [O] is the vowel as in the English
> »off«/»default«. The correct one [U] is as in English »would«.

No, it's not. It's the vowel in "pose" that is the closest one. I
do not know IPA so I can't give you the symbol.

[seeplus]

He pronounces it himself (with variations) in the FAQ for his home page.

http://www.stroustrup.com/bs_faq.html#pronounce

[Ben Bacarisse]

r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram) writes:

> Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,dk.kultur.sprog
>
> (Det er et spørgsmål om fonetisk transskription af det
> danske navn "Bjarne Stroustrup". Jeg beklager, at det er
> skrevet på engelsk. Alligevel, måske nogle danske læsere er
> interesseret i dette spørgsmål.)
>

> The pronunciation of the last syllable of »Stroustrup« as
> given with the phonetic symbols of the IPA on many web
> pages, including, IIRC, the English Wikipedia page for
> Bjarne Stroustrup, usually contains the vowel [O]. But this
> is wrong; AFAIK, it should be a vowel that sounds more like
> an [U]!

>
> The wrong pronunciation [O] is the vowel as in the English
> »off«/»default«. The correct one [U] is as in English »would«.
>

> In his FAQ on his homepage, Bjarne gives a wav file, yes,
> but not a transcript with the phonetic symbols of the IPA.
> But one can clearly read and hear there that [U] is more
> close to his own pronunciation than [O].

Hmmm... not to my ears. The vowel in the WAV file sounds like the ɔ
that ppears in the Wikipedia page (ˈsdʁʌʊ̯ˀsdʁɔb). For comparison, the
OED gives the British pronunciation of thought as θɔːt (the ː indicating
a lengthening) and in the US as θɔt. That sounds about right to me and
matches what I hear in the audio file.

<snip>
--
Ben.

[Vir Campestris]

On 01/03/2016 08:22, Haddock wrote:
> I'm not Danish, but born in Denmark and I know the pronounciation. The "U" in "strup" is simply pronouced like "U" as in other Scandinvaian languages and as in German, that is "U" is simply "U" and not "YU" as in English.
>

> Then the "ou" in Stroustrup is pronounced as "au" in German. Now you need to know German to understand what I mean. If you don't know German go to leo..org and search for example for German "auto" and click on the audio symbol next to "auto". Then you can hear how "au" is pronounced. The "au" in German is much like the "ou" in "ouch" in English.
>
> -- Haddock

Having listened to his .wav file I would say that the strou part almost
rhymes with straw - but with a bit of the ou from ouch in it. Perhaps
German pronunciations of auto vary, because to my ears that's far more
like ouch than straw.

Andy
--
p.s. please don't top post!

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Stefan Ram skrev:

> »The second U is a bit like the OO in OOP, but still
> short; maybe Strov-stroop will give an idea.«?

> I believe that the »v« might be related to what
> is also known as »stød« or a »creaky voice«.

No. There is a stød after "Strou", but the v has nothing to do
with it. And don't use a creaky voice when speaking Danish - or
any other language for that matter.

> But the sound in the English pronunciation of »stroop«
> is as in »loop«, that is, [u], not [O].

That is not the correct sound. It's just Bjarne's best guess at
how to describe the sound.